


Safe Haven

by WordsAreTrulyBeautiful



Category: Versailles (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst, Blood and Injury, Character Deaths (not monchevy), Comfort, Fear, Ficlet, M/M, No Smut, Survival, Warning - You May Feel Things, absolute love, not friendly beasts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 05:09:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11306334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WordsAreTrulyBeautiful/pseuds/WordsAreTrulyBeautiful
Summary: Apocalypse!MonChevyPhilippe swears he and his lover will survive.





	Safe Haven

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't exactly know why I wrote an Apocalypse!MonChevy ficlet, but it sort of just popped into my head at 2 in the morning. I thought I'd share it with everyone. Please read the tags. There is rather graphic depictions of injuries, and implications of more graphic violence. I've tagged all the characters mentioned by name, even if I only mention them once. If you want anything else tagged, feel free to let me know. Sorry for the vague and terrible summary; I wasn't sure how to summarize it without giving it all away. 
> 
> If any of that hasn't scared you off, enjoy!

 

Philippe squinted ahead as daybreak burned the horizon. His breathes came in hushed pants as he kept moving forward through the forest. The thin trees stood tall and densely packed together, and the soft wet ground was like dirt sand beneath his boots. He stepped over a tree root as he heard the birds calling. To his right, and just a pace or so behind, Le Chevalier walked in numb silence. Philippe did not look back, but instead focused his eyes forward and to the direction of hope.

There had been word several weeks ago that a safe haven had been built in Honfleur. His brother had stubbornly refused to leave his beloved palace, and had been quick to assure everybody that Versailles was impenetrable. Safe.

Philippe did not allow himself to think of his brother now. He pushed forward, focusing on staying on course, and surviving. He did not look back at the burning remains of Versailles. He did not acknowledge the smell of burning flesh that hit him like a punch in the gut.

A mangled howl had Philippe and Le Chevalier come to a stop. Heart pumping faster, and senses peaking to high alert, Philippe scoped the land before them for a sign of the beasts. Beside him, he could feel Le Chevalier tense, and fear ignite in the wide eyes.

_“Sire, we must evacuate,” François-Michel le Tellier said as he crowded the king, slightly out of breath after bursting into the meeting with news of Paris falling._

_“No,” Louis had said firmly, with a touch of the petulant tone he had used so often when Philippe and he had been children. “We will remain in Versailles. I will not be driven from my home.”_

_François-Michel’s eyes lowered immediately to the ground, and the king took it as a victory of his established authority. Philippe saw it as the terror in the advisor’s eyes as realization sunk in that their king was dooming them all to a painful death. The large man walked off, quickly pulled into an urgently whispered conversation with several other men. Their gazes darted periodically to the king._

_“Brother,” Philippe started, voice carefully light. Stubborn blue eyes flicked to him before going back to the window that they had been staring out. “Perhaps it is wise to listen to them?”_

_“I will not change my mind.”_

_“The reports –“_

_“Are brought in by traumatized men that rave about beasts that_ cannot exist _,” Louis interrupted. “They cannot be trusted, and I am surprised at you for being so quick to fall for their lies.”_

_“But if –“_

_“Versailles is the safest place in France.”_

_“And Honfleur?”_

_His brother did not reply. Philippe watched as his eyes scrutinized the gardens, and he could see the smallest flicker of doubt in them. Not that his brother would ever admit to it._

_“They say they’ve built a safe haven there. One specifically in response to this…” Philippe searched for the right word, but found none. “It’s a refuge for all,” he said instead, carrying on as he tried to ease his brother into understanding that he is wrong to order them to stay like pigs for a slaughter. “We could leave immediately, and –“_

_“And what?” Louis asked, turning to face him. His face was shadowed in anger and he was almost vibrating with intensity. “Leave Versailles to fall? Leave France to fall?”_

_“_ You _are France. What do we do if_ you _fall?”_

_“That’s why there’s an heir,” Louis answered, and turned back to the window._

_Philippe watched in shock, waiting for his brother to say something. Anything else. Instead, Louis watched the gardens again in stony silence._

_“You’re stubbornness is going to kill us all. Your heir included.”_

_Louis did not reply, and Philippe did not wait to see if he eventually would. He stormed from the room, ignoring the worried faces of the nobles and servants in the palace. If noticed some of the women crying over letters clutched in their hands with blood droplets smearing the words, he did not act on it._

Stepping over a fallen tree, Philippe drowned out the wails of the dying. His jaw was tight, aching with the intensity that he locked it. His right foot came down on a fallen branch and snapped it with a reverberating crack. Le Chevalier nearly jumped out of his skin.

Philippe did not comment on it. He kept moving. He kept pushing the howling out of his mind. He pushed away memories that threatened to claw their way into his mind and drown him. He refused to think about anything other than the sanctuary that awaited them.

A blood-curdling scream ripped from someone far away.

_“I think they’re close,” Alexandre Bontemps whispered with his head pressed against the door to the king’s chambers. His harsh breathing drowned out anything he could really hear, but he strained his ears to try to pick up the sounds in the palace. “They’re coming,” he said. “What do we do, your majesty?” he asked as he turned around quickly and looked at his king._

_Louis was sitting on the floor, his back resting against the end of his bed. He must have been freezing without either his coat or waistcoat, and drying blood soaking his right side. The contrast between the dark dry blood and the shining red blood that covered his clothing, his hands, and marked the side of his face, was startling._

_Philippe wondered if the mutilated body of Fabien Marchal still lay in the main hall, or if it had been devoured yet. The gardens of Versailles were watered with blood, the walls of the palace streaked and dripping with it, the grounds decorated with entrails of the people that once inhabited the epitome of nobility and luxury that was the king’s prideful home. Philippe’s morbid musings were interrupted by the shuddering wet attempts to breathe by the Marquise de Montespan._

_Whether his brother heard her or not, he couldn’t be sure. Louis had been staring with dead eyes at a spot on the wall for what felt like an eternity. He had not spoken since they’d dragged his mistress’s body into the room to die beside her king._

_“We have to get out,” Bontemps said. “We have to do it now while we still have the chance.” He came to crouch in front of his king, watching for a sign of consciousness or life, but the king showed neither. “What do we do, sire?” Bontemps asked again, desperation oozing from him as blood oozed from the Marquise de Montespan’s neck. “Sire?” He prompted frantically. “Orders, sire? Orders!” he half yelled._

_Beside Philippe, Le Chevalier flinched at the volume. He was pressed against Philippe, their thighs touching lightly, making Philippe feel each tremble that coursed through his lovers’ body._

_Philippe did not offer him comfort because there was nothing for him to say. He instead turned his head to look at his brother. His brother who was an empty shell, numb and lost. He wasn’t sure if his thoughts were racing or if there was nothing at all in his elder brother’s mind, but he realized it did not matter._

_He looked to Bontemps. The man looked at his king utterly lost. The look was as clear as anything: he did not understand. He did not understand how his king, who had always been so authoritative when it came to decisions for the good of his country, his people, his home, was unresponsive. He did not understand why his king had not moved for hours, or why his pale face, streaked with drying blood, did not acknowledge the dying woman lying against the wall several feet away. He did not understand how his king could not care about his country falling. He did not understand that his king was broken._

_His king was no longer a king at all, for who is a king without a people to govern?_

_Louis had spent his entire life being told who he was, and who that meant he had to become. He had spent his entire life being The King of France. He knew nothing but his duty to his country and his responsibility to lead. He was never a man, but always a king. Louis didn’t know who he was if not a king. He had never the reason to find out. So who was he now that he was no longer the king?_

_He was a man that had lost everything. A man with no identity. He had no hopes. No dreams. No idea who he was or how he would figure it out. He had no desire to find out. He tied himself so fully to his identity as the king. He was France. And France was lost. So who was he? What was he?_

_The man Bontemps was looking for would never be found. What sat before them all was a defeated and hollow shell of a man that had once been King Louis XIV, the sun king. The light for France to follow. Now there wasn’t even a flicker of it. Louis XIV was dead. The bloodied and broken man that sat in his chambers and wore his clothes didn’t even resemble the person he once had been._

_Louis’s lifeless gaze stayed on the wall. The only sign of life being the slow rise of his chest as he breathed._

_Bontemps accepted this reality with a stagger backwards. Emotions flicked across his face so fast that it was a blur of facial ticks. When his gaze turned away from the lost king, they caught Philippe’s._

_A silent conversation that lasted less than a second passed between them. An understanding and an accord was struck as they both admitted to each other, though not aloud – never aloud; not even to themselves – that the king was not fit to lead. And more importantly, Philippe was._

_Pushing himself to a standing position, Philippe ignored the flinch of Le Chevalier as his lover was jolted from his own fear-clouded thoughts. He felt his eyes follow his every move, confused and scared as he clung to Philippe’s existence like he’d crumble to nothing without it._

_“We need to get out into the gardens,” Philippe stated, keeping his voice low._

_The sound of destruction and death had been steadily getting louder as the time went on. As the cries of those still alive in the palace as their hiding places were found managed to penetrate the room every so often, their chances of escape dropped further and further._

_A thud rocked the bowl of fruit on the table, and the crash of shattering glass echoed in the palace. Philippe did not need to see it to know that the Hall of Mirrors was no more. His gaze was drawn to his brother instantly, but there was not a single piece of acknowledgment on his face. Staring, eyes glazed, ahead of himself as everything fell apart around him._

_“If we can make it into the woods, we can stay under cover and climb the trees if we need to. I can get us to Honfleur,” Philippe said, moving further into the room. “We cover each other’s blind points, and we stick together. Follow every order without question, and we can make it,” Philippe finished, sounding more confident than he felt._

_As he strapped three guns to his person, hoping to god that they had gunpowder in them as there was none in the room, he heard the strangled wet distressed gasp for air from the Marquise de Montespan, and froze. Five vain attempts to fill her lungs came in quick succession. A ruined sob came from her lips as she cried at the failure to breathe. The sob turned sickeningly wet as blood bubbled up from her throat and chocked her again. Bontemps no longer rushed to her side to aid her, as there was no hope. The understanding of his lack of action caused another sob to break out of her throat against her body’s wishes, and it quickly turned into a garbled blood bath._

_Louis’s head lolled to the side, his eyes traveling slowly away from his wall to look at her body, soon to be corpse. She had been wearing a light colored dress today, but the original color was lost to the soaking of blood. Slashes across her abdomen, thigh, and neck were gushing blood and what had been brilliant red that oozed from between her lips was darkening to almost black as it pooled in her mouth and choked her again and again. Some would call it a miracle she hadn’t died yet. They would be wrong. With this type of death, it was a curse to have the end pulled so far away. Her open eyes, with a continuous flow of tears burning hot down her cheeks, were on Louis._

_Philippe would have shot her hours ago if it weren’t for the sound of the gunshot alerting the beasts to where they were._

_Louis turned his head back to face forward, and his eyes found the same spot on the wall just as slowly as they’d left it._

_“Get as many supplies as you can,” Philippe said, breaking the silence. Bontemps moved to comply, as did Le Chevalier._

_Philippe was tightening his belt after he slipped in a small knife – not that it would do anything against the beasts, but any weapon was better than no weapon – when the loud clattering came from the corner of the room. His attention snapped up to see Le Chevalier staring at a wobbling silver bowl on the ground. His hands were shaking._

_Philippe walked over slowly, watching his lover’s state and trying to gauge what had happened. Le Chevalier had been silent almost as long as his brother, but he still had life. He kept himself as close to Philippe as he could, as if a reminder to them both that they were still breathing was enough to keep hold of sanity. He wasn’t wrong._

_As he approached, Philippe realized that Le Chevalier was not staring down at the bowl, but a single pastry that had fallen, it’s sugar-sweet face down onto the floor just beside the bowl. Philippe’s eyes took in the items on the table in front of his lover, and saw his own small lace handkerchief, something he had given to Le Chevalier that morning without a thought and without meaning, containing several more of the same pastries. Philippe looked back to his lover, and watched as a tear dropped silently down onto the ground, barely missing the fallen pastry._

_A shuddered breath came from Le Chevalier, and Philippe came to a stop in front of him. He tried to think of something to say. Anything to stop Le Chevalier’s tears. He wished for something to tell him what the right thing to whisper to him was. He tried to think of a speech, or even a single phrase that would make it better, but it had never been Philippe that was so talented with speeches. His brother was the one who could talk anyone into believing whatever he had to say. No matter how mad, and to whisper an assurance of their survival was mad, but Louis would be able to do it._

_Without his brother’s talent, or even his brother’s guidance to seek, Philippe tried to string together something to keep Le Chevalier together. It may have been selfish to be so desperate to stop him from falling apart, but Philippe knew if his lover shattered so would he. Yet, no sentence that came to him was nearly good enough. He opened his mouth to say something anyway. Anything, as long as Le Chevalier would hear him and know he wanted to say what he needed. He would try. He would always try for him._

_“I was trying to wrap them up,” Le Chevalier explained, cutting him off before he could even start. Philippe frowned in confusion, and watched as more tears fell to the ground. Le Chevalier’s face was hidden from view as it was tilted down towards the ground, his golden ringlets a curtain over his features. “They’ve always been your favorite,” Le Chevalier said, and Philippe realized he meant the pastries. “I – I thought you’d like them if we stopped to eat something on the way. And we don’t know if they have them at the safe haven, so I thought –“_

_Le Chevalier’s breath caught painfully, and he broke off abruptly. Philippe felt himself turn ice cold and his heart twist and ach at the sight before him. He watched as Le Chevalier lifted a shaking hand to the handkerchief once more, and attempted to fold it. There were too many pastries in the small handkerchief for it to have enough material to knot. Le Chevalier tried anyway, his numb fingers fumbling as he tried to tie it._

_His trembling hand started to shake too hard for him to pinch the material, and the handkerchief fell open. Le Chevalier’s breath caught again, wet with tears. Philippe was aware that the attempts of breathing from Marquise de Montespan had stopped, and it was deafeningly quite in the king’s chambers._

_Le Chevalier must have noticed too, as he froze before setting back to his impossible task with urgency. Philippe’s hand slowly slipped to cover his lovers own, stopping the movements. Le Chevalier vibrated in fear. Philippe stepped closer and pulled the hands away. Le Chevalier looked up with red rimmed eyes. Philippe felt his own eyes moisten threateningly as his heart broke that little bit more._

_“I’m just trying to take care of you,” Le Chevalier told him. “It’s my job. It’s my duty –  and my honor –  as someone who lov –“ Le Chevalier cut himself off, tears overflowing and his breathing broke again._

_Silence passed between them, neither daring to move. Barely to breathe._

_“What if we don’t make it?” Le Chevalier asked in barely a whisper._

_Philippe moved forward and cupped his lover’s face delicately in his hands. His thumb brushed across the man’s jawline, in the softest caress he could manage. Le Chevalier trembled harder with his touch and his eyes burned bright with fear and tears._

_“What if –“_

_“Shhh,” Philippe hushed him softly, closing his eyes as he touched his forehead against Le Chevalier’s own. He held them there, pushing everything out of his mind and focused on the sensation of being close to his lover. He was thinking about how best to word his next thought when Le Chevalier’s breath brushed across his lips._

_“I’m scared,” Le Chevalier whispered, his tears running onto and over Philippe’s hands._

_“I’ll protect you,” Philippe vowed in an equal whisper._

_“Who’s going to protect you?” Le Chevalier asked, fear seeping into every word at the very thought that unfathomable path lead down._

_Against rational thought, and the logical reaction of any human being, Philippe’s reaction was to smile. A genuine smile that cracked his lips and made him look half-mad as he felt his spirits soar. It was the first time he’d smiled in what felt like centuries, and the first time he wasn’t terrified in what felt like longer. Philippe pressed a tender kiss to his lover’s lips._

_“We’ll protect each other,” he said against the lips he loved so much that belonged to the man he loved more than he ever thought possible. “We’ll survive this together. And when we do, we’ll have all the pastries we want,” he smiled._

_“All of them?” Le Chevalier breathed._

_“We’ll have a whole room dedicated to them. Filled to bursting,” Philippe promised._

_“Filled to bursting,” Le Chevalier repeated, sounding like he was taking the most important and serious of oaths._

_Philippe brushed his lips against his lovers again, swearing to keep all his promises._

Hissing that made skin crawl with revulsion and frigid lead weights appear in ones stomach rolled over them as they walked. Birds no longer sang. Eyes felt like they were everywhere. Watching. Waiting. Hungry, with the dripping blood of their last victim still clinging to their mouths, the stench of rotting flesh and hot blood on their breath. 

Would they be the beasts’ next kill? Would it even wait to kill them before it started its meal? They had certainly demonstrated their prey had no need to be completely dead before they began their feast. Would they even be a meal? Or a kill for sport? To kill was as necessary to these beasts as breathing if the rumors were to be believed. Philippe thought all rumors should be believed about them just in case, as if they’d believed the first rumors all those weeks ago, perhaps it would have been more than he and his lover that were leaving Versailles.

If the beasts were out there or if it was paranoia, they wouldn’t know until it was too late. All they could do was keep moving and try to survive. Philippe had promises to keep.

“Come on,” he said quietly to Le Chevalier, his eyes darting around their surroundings.

He continued walking, heading towards the sun. Le Chevalier was right beside him, their footsteps falling in sync and their shoulders brushing. They didn’t speak. They didn’t look back. They walked towards hope as the world burned.

Together.

**Author's Note:**

> So, what did you think?


End file.
